FurryFarm Preview

Make cute animals do the “wild thing” in FurryFarm

Apparently the majority of Facebook gamers are suckers for cute animals given how many pet raising sims are popping up on the social network. FurryFarm is the latest game to exploit our love of adorable doe-eyed baby chicks and bunnies.

The goal of FurryFarm couldn’t be simpler: it’s a game about caring for animals and… ahem… helping them find “true love.” To do this, a few basic necessities will have to be met. You need to have at least two animals of the same breed, and they must be adults (animals start out as babies and will mature after a certain amount of real-time has passed). They must be happy, which involves sprinkling some food on the ground. When the conditions are right, you can select the Mate command.

Don’t worry, it’s all very innocent. The two potential soulmates frolic towards each other, little red hearts appear above their heads, and they disappear into the barn for a little “alone time.” The chances of a pairing actually resulting in offspring is 80%, and costs a few coins. Sadly, the two rabbits we tried to mate during our test-drive of the game weren’t successful, and there was no baby bunny. (So much for the expression “breeding like rabbits…”)

There are a handful of other things to do at the current time, like watering the grass on the farm and investigating the wishing well, which tosses you a few extra coins once per day. You can also deck out your farm with stuff from the shop, which include different barns, plants and shrubs, and a variety of decorative doo-dads like mailboxes, beehives and tractors. For the record, some of these items — like the giant potted bonsai tree — look ridiculously out of place on a farm.

It looks like there will be mini-games for sale as well. So far there’s only one, called The Egg Scramble!, which we didn’t get to test because it costs 10 Rubies, which are the game’s premium currency. (In other words, you have to pay real-world cash for it.)

The shop also sells a cute assortment of rabbits, sheep, dogs, chickens, goats, ponies, cats and other animals. Some can be bought with plain old coins, others with Rubies, and another one – the Appaloosa pony – is an exclusive item only available to fans.

You start with one farm that holds up to 10 animals, and can eventually purchase new farms if you meet all the necessary requirements (it’s based on level, cost, and having a certain number of friends in the game). The map shows 15 farms, and six of them are currently available to players.

We weren’t impressed with the Rescue Animals button, which depicts animals in nasty scenarios (a rabbit on a dinner plate, a pig roasting over a fire…) to try to get you to click on the Get Help! button, which publishes a message to your friend feed to solicit people to sign up for the game. When we tried to click through, we were notified that this feature had been temporarily disabled. Here’s hoping the developers just get rid of it altogether.

FurryFarm isn’t terribly impressive in its current state, but it will be interesting to see how the game is fleshed out with new features over the coming months. To receive updates about this game, be sure to set a Gamezebo alert.